The present invention relates in general to passenger sliding door operation for transportation vehicles, and, more specifically, to preventing collision between a sliding door and a fuel door adjacent to the sliding door opening.
A sliding passenger door is a popular item on vans and minivans. Typically, both the left and right sides of a minivan may be equipped with sliding passenger doors for the second and third rows of seating. Conventionally, a fuel door covering a gas cap and gas filler neck is also located on one side of the vehicle, rearward of one of the sliding doors. Because of the desire to have a large ingress/egress opening when the sliding passenger door is open, the range of travel of the sliding door typically overlaps the area where a fuel door is installed.
In order to prevent the sliding door from colliding with an open fuel door at a refueling stop, various protection systems have been put into practice. For example, a mechanical interlock using levers activated by the opening of the fuel door has been used to block operation of the sliding door until the fuel door is reclosed. It would be desirable to avoid the added costs of such a mechanical interlock system together with the manufacturing and resulting warranty costs associated with the mechanical system.
It has also been suggested to include a position sensor in a fuel door that would disable operation of a power system for a powered sliding door when the fuel door is ajar. However, it would be desirable to avoid the necessity to make changes to the power sliding door system itself. Furthermore, prevention of powered sliding door operation without a mechanical interlock does not prevent accidental manual (i.e., unpowered) opening of the sliding door when the fuel door is open, especially from inside the passenger cabin where the open state of the fuel door is less apparent to the person opening the door.